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The R4 Rural Resilience Initiative

More than 2.3 billion people live on less than US$ 1.25 a day and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Vulnerability to climate-related shocks – made more frequent and intense by climate change – is a constant threat to their ability to secure enough nutritious food throughout the year. In the face of these challenges, the World Food Programme (WFP) is developing innovative tools and strategies to reduce and mitigate risks in order to overcome hunger, achieve food security and enhance resilience.

WFP and Oxfam America launched the R4 Rural Resilience Initiative (R4) in 2011 to enable vulnerable rural families to increase their food and income security by managing climate-related risks. Currently active in Ethiopia, Senegal, Malawi and Zambia, the initiative is also being piloted in Kenya and Zimbabwe.

As of early 2018, R4 reached over 57,000 farmers (about 300,000 people) in Ethiopia, Senegal, Malawi, Zambia and Kenya through a combination of four risk management strategies: improved resource management through asset creation (risk reduction); insurance (risk transfer); livelihoods diversification and microcredit (prudent risk taking); and savings (risk reserves). In 2018, around US$ 1.5 million of insurance payouts will be distributed through the initiative in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Senegal and Zambia to compensate for weather-related losses. This year, R4 is expanding also in Zimbabwe.

Through its innovative integrated climate risk management approach, R4 enables the poorest farmers to access crop insurance by participating in risk reduction activities. Assets built through such activities – including WFP’s Food Assistance for Assets programmes – promote the resilience of farmers and their families by steadily decreasing vulnerability to disaster risks over time.

When a shock hits, compensation for weather-related losses prevents farmers from having to take desperate measures such as selling productive assets, and stimulates faster recovery. By protecting farmers’ investments in case of a bad season, R4 enables them to invest in riskier but more remunerative enterprises, as well as in seeds, fertilizers and new technologies.

Evaluations show how R4 is helping improve farmers’ resilience. For example, in Ethiopia insured farmers save more than twice as much as those without any insurance, and they invest more in seeds, fertilizers and productive assets, such as plough oxen.

The initiative also has positive effects on gender equality. In Senegal, women claimed that they felt empowered as – in addition to having increased access to land, seeds and water for irrigation and drinking – they could benefit from training in numeracy, literacy and business.

To ensure long-term sustainability, R4 contributes to the creation of rural financial markets, by building the capacity of farmers, local insurance companies and micro-finance institutions and gradually supporting farmers to start paying for insurance in cash.